


Wordless

by CG (NYCScribbler)



Category: Austin & Murry-O'Keefe Families - Madeleine L'Engle
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 00:34:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NYCScribbler/pseuds/CG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three times Calvin O'Keefe hasn't known what to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wordless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inrequimby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inrequimby/gifts).



He doesn't know what to say, but that's not new for Calvin O'Keefe, nine years old and the third of seven kids, already aware that he's not like the rest of his family. He likes quiet, and doesn't mind being by himself. From everything his family has said to him, that's not normal. Worst of all, he even kind of likes school a little bit, even though he'd rather let Junior whale on him until Ma makes him stop before he'd admit it. At least at school, you don't _have_ to hit people to get them to like you.

But this isn't a person, it's a plant. Or it's going to be a plant. His science teacher explained it, and he thinks he understands, but he's going to have to see it to believe it. Right now it's a bean in a plastic container full of dirt, sitting in a bowl so the water doesn't get on the windowsill and maybe even on the books, because it would be a lot worse if it got on the books. If it grows at all, he'll get it a real flowerpot; people are always throwing them out, and he can trade his sweat for that, like he did for the china.

But maybe it already knows that he's not taking care of it the way that he's supposed to, maybe it already resents him, maybe it already thinks of him the way he thinks of Pa when he's all by himself before he keeps himself from thinking it. Maybe the first thing it needs to know is that it's loved. "Hi," he says shyly. "'m sorry for the cheap pot. I'm going to get you something good just as soon as I can. I just couldn't right now. But I'm going to take the best care of you that I can."

Maybe it's just his imagination, because he's gotten a lot of use out of his imagination lately, but the container feels a little bit warmer in his hands, like a sudden shy smile. He pats it on the side, gently, awkwardly, like it's one of his little sisters, and puts it down on the windowsill. "I'll be right back, promise," he tells it so that it doesn't get scared, and he runs to find a book to read to it.

The librarian gives him a whole big book on all kinds of explorers, and he takes it. It's going to take him a while to get through, but that's okay. He's got a lot of time. And at least if he and his plant are rooted in place, their minds can explore.

~*~

He doesn't know what to say, and this is an old fear reborn for Calvin O'Keefe, sixteen years old and finally secure in both his physical and metaphorical skin. Senex is dying, and the farae are dying, and the farandolae are dying, and Charles Wallace is dying, and Sporos won't Deepen. Selfish and small and spiteful, and Calvin is suddenly reminded of his little brothers, the ones who like to help beat up Charles Wallace.

That's not a thought he can entertain right now. A ding around the ear sets Whippy right for a little while, but he can't do that with a farandola. But some of the violent need leaks out, enough that he picks up a discordant jangle of disgust and horror from Sporos before a black wall falls between them and all his kything falls into a chill abyss, fading out like a passing stereo. In a timeless moment, he wonders if the wall is of Sporos's making or his own; after all, to hate is Ecthroid, isn't it?

Unable to reach out to the partner assigned to him for this test, he reaches for the familiar touch-feel-knowledge of Meg that he's always sensed even before he knew what it was; at least she's a partner of some kind, a partner of his choice. The blaze of her mind fills him. Someday, he'll be able to tell her what he feels when he kythes with her, but for now the fragile cracks of her old fears are not yet fully healed, and she is too insecure yet to believe what he has to say of her.

She bears him up as she bears the fara up, giving of herself just by being there. And now he knows it: part of what he senses from her is that he loves her, and from this love grows all the love he'll need to survive this.

Progo kythes to Meg, but as close as Calvin is to Meg, he hears it as well. "Humans need their Deepening Places too."

Meg has trouble with that, but for Calvin it pulls everything together in a flash of beautiful insight. A Deepening Place doesn't have to be a _physical_ place, just as nothing and everything within the mitochondrion is physical. Meg, Charles Wallace, the Murrys' old farmhouse, the beaded curtain, the concotions always bubbling in the kitchen and the lab, Sandy and Dennys's vegetable garden, the creak in the step, Fortinbras's bark, the feel of Louise the Larger's scales under his hands- these are the places he has found, rooted in, and grown from. The concept clicks into place in a quantum leap, like a tesser of the soul.

"If to hate is to be nothing, then to love is to be everything," he kythes to Sporos, sending with it how sudden this awareness is. He sends his awareness of the song, and how hatred makes it weak, and how love makes it strong, and the horror of its breakage. Most of all, he sends love: the fathomless love he has for Meg, the brotherly protectiveness he feels for Charles Wallace, the camaraderie he will always share with Sandy and Dennys, the wonder of Mrs. Murry's understanding, the memory of rescuing Mr. Murry from Camazotz, the joy and amazement he feels for this whole adventure.

It's enough. It's just enough.

~*~

He doesn't know what to say, because for Calvin O'Keefe, seventeen years old, the skinniest freshman in college, and sure that he's in over his head, this is the kind of beauty he's never seen with his own two eyes. The video rolls on, and he stares, enthralled.

There is nothing like Yadah in this world, though there are uncountable mitochondria on this planet. But the undersea video taken from the unmanned camera comes closest to the picture he's built up in his mind of what Yadah would have looked like to physical eyes. There's a serenity in the gentle currents of the water and the undulation of the kelp, contrasted by the restlessness of the little fish darting through the coral. Every creatures has its place in this pattern, even if some of them are still looking for it.

Calvin understands _that_ feeling.

The video is old and grainy, skipping in spots. Those blips remind him uncomfortably of when Yadah faltered amid the maddened dance of the farandolae as they sucked life from the farae that gave them birth. He has to remember that this is only a recording, that the skipping is a product of technology, not Echthroi.

But even through this faulty medium, a few flashes of emotion and awareness pass through to him- nothing that he can deepen and open up to, of course, since the images aren't live. They're enough to whet his appetite. He yearns for more, for the chance to be immersed in this world and understand it as best as he can. Objectively, he's always known that three quarters of the earth is covered in water; for the first time, he's understanding that there might be a similar proportion of life in that water.

He kythes this awareness to Meg, who sends back a wistful hungry curiosity that matches his own, and more than ever he knows that she will be with him wherever he goes.

The lecture seems a little out of place, since it covers history instead of biology, but he listens in fascination as the professor talks about Jacques Cousteau and his discoveries. In his mind, there's an echo under the professor's words, the high-pitched voice of a nine-year-old boy reading quietly in a library to a bean plant, stumbling over some of the foreign names and unfamiliar words, but conveying love and the desire to grow beyond what was expected.


End file.
